Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 271: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HER ROYAL LOVER. 263 . occupied at present by Madame de Mineleko. Di- rectly underneath there was a little private door, by which it had been agreed that Najeska Ivanowna should go away secretly in order to return home be- fore the dawn. Several shadows, scarcely visible for the regards of the indifferent, were standing about, huddled to- gether, deliberating while awaiting the arrival of the vehicle. In the reflections of the helmets, in the glistening of the long sabers of polished steel, which > were brilliantly delineated upon the dull colors of the dark uniforms, Najeska Ivanowna immediately recognized the profiles of several cavaliers and an officer, who appeared to hold themselves ready for a departure rather than for a night patrol. The unhappy creature had no longer reason to de- lude herself; the hideous truth was clearly display- ing itseif in all its implacable reality. As she her- self had predicted to the king, this marriage was the misfortune of her life! Oh! the prediction that had been made to her by that sorceress encountered in her tender youth was not long in realizing itself! And did she not know now from whom the misfor- tune came? Who, save the old empress, could have ever been able to plot such a treason? She saw it, this odious plot which was enveloping her on all sides! “And the king, the feeble king, was undoubtedly the prisoner of his mother-in-law !” She had held the hand which had signed this iniquit- ous decree. A sovereign generally good and merci- ful, misled by anger, she had only acted thus against the princess because she had dared to take the place formerly occupied by the daughter of this mother, a roaring and howling lioness to defend the place of Eomichbooks:com